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Population of Poland, by gender 1900-2020
The next entries in the graph come in 1946, where Poland's population falls to 23.9 million. The number of men falls by almost 5 million and the number of women falls by over 3.5 million. Poland was one of the most devastated countries during the Second World War, due to it's location it was the staging ground for much of the violence during Germany's war against Russia, and the civilian population was devastated during both occupations. With up to 5.8 million total deaths, approximately 17 percent of the total Polish population died during the Second World War, which is a higher proportion than any other country involved in the war.
After the war, Poland's population grew from 1946 onwards until the turn of the century, the difference in the number of men and women remained at around one million people, and the total population exceeded its pre-war levels in the late 1960s. Like many other Eastern European countries, with the fall of the iron curtain in the early 1990s, the population had greater freedom of movement and growth began to slow. By 2000 the population growth was declining, the number of men was and women were at 18.7 and 19.4 million respectively, and both populations then fell by 2015, with the number of men declining at a slightly faster rate than the number of women.